


Ancient Light

by storyskein



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Relationships, F/F, Forgiveness, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:50:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8215409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyskein/pseuds/storyskein
Summary: Octavia wants out of Arkadia, but with the end of the world and the Sky People and Grounders coming together to try and save humanity, that's not possible. The best she has is accepting an offer from Luna to be Luna's guard in the dangerous last days. What bonds them is the memory of Lincoln and an idea that maybe, just maybe, there can be peace for them both along the way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to reblogginhood and brave-princess-mighty-wanheda to recruiting me to the good ship Luntavia. It's one that's full of heartbreak and great potential for slow burn angst, as well as forgiveness and healing and all that stuff that I absolutely adore. 
> 
> "Ancient Light" will be a chapter fic that drops in on Luna and Octavia at various points through the end days, exodus, and building of the domes/tunnels that humanity hopes will save some of them.

When Octavia looks up to see Luna entering the metal and wire gates, she has to blink three times to shake the utter dissonance of Luna in Arkadia. Luna is so...other, even more than most Grounders. The Sky People wear plain simple clothes and have plain simple hair; their existence even on Earth is monochrome and tired. Octavia had always hated it, even as a child, dingy whites and faded blues and bent steel. 

Luna, though, is everything the Sky People are not. All wild curls and iridescent sheen and tattered skirts. She walks with such assurance that even though Octavia doesn’t particularly like her or the decision she made not to help them, she respects her nonetheless. 

Octavia doesn’t get to say anything to her though--not that she wants to, Luna’s refusal to help them still burns--but she finds comfort in the fact that Luna came. She’s helping this time. Whatever Kane told her on his diplomatic mission must have been dire enough that she decided to get off that rusty bucket of hers. 

Whispers ran throughout the camp about what, exactly, it was that had the Council so tense. She’d overheard Clarke and Raven talking about it it in Raven’s lab the other day, something about radiation and old power plants. Octavia didn’t piece it all together--she doesn't particularly care at this point. All Octavia wants is her sword's hilt in her hand and a sharp steel extension of her arm. Not to think. Not to feel. 

Of course, being back in Arkadia hadn’t been part of the plan. Roan insisted that they all stage together, whatever the hell that meant, sounded like bullshit. But Roan believed Clarke, with whatever information Clarke had, so here she was. 

For now. 

Soon, she’d be gone from this shit hole for good. 

*

Luna finds her several hours later, in the stables with Helios. 

“She’s a beautiful horse,” Luna says, appearing suddenly behind Octavia. 

Octavia startles a little and hates herself for it--she’s supposed to be better than that but ever since Lincoln-- _ever since Lincoln_ \--she’s been off her game. She tightens her face into something she hopes resembles neutral and looks up to see Luna just standing outside the hall, placid and regarding her with that mysterious, infuriating gaze. 

“She is,” Octavia says finally, finishing up the brushing and giving Helios one last pat. She loves Helios, still takes care of her, but like everything in Arkadia it’s just a painful reminder of a past she hates. Helios used to be her freedom, her joy. 

“King Roan said in the meeting that you had agreed to join his guard, is that true?”

Octavia brushes past Luna. “What do you care?”

Her silence says enough to make Octavia bristle. “Look, if you’re going to disapprove of what I do on behalf of whatever memory of Lincoln you _think_ you had, just don’t, all right?” 

Jealousy and grief grip her chest, unmerciful and unrelenting. All at once her memories of Lincoln roar back into her brain, the sweet kisses and the hard words and most of all, the click of the trigger that hammers in her brain. The red banner of blood. The walk to the cave she doesn’t remember, the feel of her brother’s face beneath her fists. She still can’t look at him--both in hate and in love, in rage at him and rage at herself. 

It’s silent with just Octavia and Luna facing each other in the barn. There’s nothing but the wind in the trees and children laughing in the distance and Helios snuffling her oats. She can tell that Luna is deciding something, and though she’s not inclined to give her time to do so, something holds Octavia in that moment. Waits for her to speak. 

Finally, Luna’s lips quirk into a smile. Octavia watches, a bit surprised. She’s tempted to snap _what_ but doesn’t. 

“Do you want to know what happened in the meeting?”

Octavia arches her eyebrow. “I thought that was supposed to be a secret?”

Luna’s shoulders lift just a little, and she cocks her head. “What do I care for their secrets? Besides, it’s not like you’re going to tell anyone.”

Point. Octavia hardly talks to anyone anymore. But she isn’t sure how Luna had her number on that. 

Besides, she’s curious. “Fine. What’s going on? Why is everything so fucking secret?”

“The world is ending,” Luna says simply. “Clarke says that the Commander’s Spirit told her so. Old power plants are melting down and filling the atmosphere with radiation. We have less than six months. ”

Octavia is tempted to snark back that the world is always ending, but this has a ring of truth to it. As soon as she hears Luna say it, it wiggles deep into her bones and squats there. Of course. This is the truth of the matter. From the sky to the ground, from the Ark to Earth, the world is ending. In this one moment her whole life comes into focus; everything clicks into place in a way she can hardly describe but feels right. You only live a life like she did if it was the apocalypse, and this was it. The end. 

“What are they going to do?” Octavia asks finally. 

“Try and find a place to live. They have some plans. Some other clans are on their way to meet here. We’ll have a summit in a week, outside of Polis. Neutral territory.”

“Are you going to help?” Octavia’s voice is snide, but she doesn’t care. She also doesn’t care about surviving this herself, she knows that immediately, but there’s a tiny seed of her that wants someone to see this through. 

_Bellamy_ , a small voice whispers and she blanches. 

Luna gives her an odd look, but continues on. “I know you think I was a coward about the chip.” 

Blame. Firmer ground for her. “Yeah, I do.”

“I made a mistake.” Luna’s voice has a firmness to it but is also vulnerable in a way that makes Octavia curious. _I made a mistake_ said so simply, so confidently. "But not in the way you're thinking. I would never take the chip. But I should have helped. Somehow. When ALIE came and Derrick died I got scared. I just wanted you gone."

Octavia remembered the woman's screams and wails, so like her own when they buried---him. "I understand. And I'm sorry about Derrick.”

Octavia rolls her shoulders, shakes herself a little bit at the rising tide of grief, anger in her. Why does she feel so fucking off-kilter? Like she has nothing to anchor her when she’s with Luna, it’s all chaos and questions and things she doesn’t to want to feel or think about. She wades past those thoughts, grips on anything to keep her from unraveling in front of her. “So you’ll help now?”

“I will. I have supplies that the people need. Ships, tackle, scrap metal. Plus some access to tech that no one else knows of. And I hope…,” she pauses, and drops the Clan Leader mask again, and Octavia realizes how young Luna is. Bellamy’s age, probably, no older. “I hope that we can work together. And in working together, if we survive, we can have a more lasting peace.”

“Seems optimistic.”

“Maybe.” Luna half-laughs at that. “But probably also our only hope.”

They’re silent again. Besides talking about Lincoln which Octavia does not want to do, she’s not sure why Luna is here, why Luna told her this information.

“So what do you want, Luna? Why are you here?”

Luna's gaze sharpens on Octavia. “Like I said earlier, Roan told us you volunteered to be on his guard. But then he mentioned the head of his guard--Echo--and Bellamy...ah, shall we say...vociferously rejected your involvement.”

Octavia’s lip curls into a snarl. “Echo? Echo would be my...my what, captain?”

“Yes. So. When I left they were arguing about if you should be told and how and what should be done about Echo. I gather she betrayed the Sky People?”

“You could say that. She got my brother’s girlfriend killed. Plus thirty of our people.” Octavia pushes a hand through her hair and sighs. “Fuck.” Before she can stop herself, because all she seems to want to do is talk to Luna, and confide in her, and finally she just can’t stop it. “Roan was my out. His guard was my way out of here.” She rubs the heel of her palm against her eyes, at least not letting Luna see the angry tears needling her eyes. 

“I came to offer you another position should you want it. So you know your options. And I wanted to talk about it with you privately.”

“Oh.” Octavia sniffs back her frustration, waits a beat. “Well. What's the job?”

“I don’t...I don’t believe in violence. You know this.” Luna taps her fingers against her legs, and Octavia realizes she’s nervous. “But I am also not a fool. The things that they were saying in there...there are dangerous times ahead. I would like a guard. I would also like a sparring partner to brush up on my skills and to teach my people some basic self-defense. I came to offer you that option, instead of Roan’s guard. You’d travel with me once the exodus starts--”

“Exodus?!”

Luna waves her hand in an _in a minute gesture_. “I know it’s not as prestigious, maybe, as working with the King of Azgeda. Not as dangerous. But...I wanted you to know that the...position, I suppose...is available. If you wanted another option.”

There’s no way she could work with Echo without killing her, Octavia knew that for damn sure. But…working with Luna? She respects her, sure, but being her guard? Sparring partner? To what end? 

“Let me think on it,” Octavia blurts out before she says no just to be contrary about something. It burns her that Bellamy was still, still, trying to influence her decisions when she didn’t fucking ask him--but she appreciates that Luna came to her directly. And that makes her at least want to consider it. “Just one question, I guess.”

“Yes?”

“Do we...do we stay here? In Arkadia? Work with the Sky People?”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yes. It does. I don’t want to be here.”

“We’ll be camping outside the gates with the other clans. And yes, hopefully, we’ll all be working together. Even Azgeda would, so, that would be no different.”

Shit. Fuck. She’d never be able to get away. 

“Okay. Well.” Octavia closes her eyes. Chaotic thoughts pepper her brain and she can’t get a handle on any of them and she’s just...tired. “I’ll think on it.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow for another meeting. Have your answer for me then?”

Octavia looks at Luna again, the setting sun glinting off the red-brown streaks in her hair, causing the pearls braided in her hair to glow. She realizes just how much she can’’t read this woman, how Luna had something about her that Octavia doesn’t. A calm, even in the face of disaster. What was that like? Suddenly Octavia wanted to know, badly, how to have so much sorrow and still so much peace. 

She looks away before her face could betray her. “Sure. I’ll have your answer for you tomorrow.”

Luna nods once then murmurs a quiet good night before turning and walking out of the barn, melting into the dusky shadows. Octavia uses the secret exit to escape into the forest behind the settlement. She keeps some nominal supplies--a blanket, moonshine, and some dried food in the hollow of a tree--eats fast and takes a shot. A silvery full moon in a clear sky shines over her as she lays down on the soft, mulchy ground and pulls the ratty blanket over her shoulders. Sleep doesn’t come to her easily anymore, but at least tonight she can push away the past with the question of what kind of future she wants before the world ends.


End file.
